


thank you, master

by LaurieJupiter12



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Is Mentioned, Angst and Feels, Darth Maul Is Mentioned, Darth Vader Has Feelings, Darth Vader Has Issues, Darth Vader Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Feels, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Mentioned Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Sith Anakin Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26273860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurieJupiter12/pseuds/LaurieJupiter12
Summary: Vader retraces Ahsoka's last steps but the past won't leave him alone. The very last scene of Victory and Death. Anisoka if you squint.
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano & Darth Vader, Ahsoka Tano/Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker/Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 6
Kudos: 60





	thank you, master

_You’re stuck with me, Skyguy._

His boots sank into the crisp snow as he took his first steps into the moon of Virmire. The landscape buzzed with activity from his stormtroopers. Imperial astromechs whizzed by to his left, speaking to each other in binary and to his right was _her, walking beside him in the Temple with a smile brighter than anything he could ever remember her wearing, and he knows that it was just after her victory with the Resolute, he reached over to give her a pat with the pride swelling up in his chest, he would never forget how she looked up at him in that moment with excitement in her eyes_ until his vision was affixed upon the Venator star destroyer that had crash landed on this moon many years ago. A relic of a bygone era that he would rather forget. The Empire was his life now after all.

“Commander Cody,” he greeted the trooper walking up to him. ( _Let me in. I don’t care what she’s accused of._ )

“Lord Vader, we’ve sent probe droids near the crash site,” Cody reported as he walked alongside the Sith Lord. 

“Any anomalies?” Vader asked, hands clasped behind him. 

“There was one,” informed Cody. “Some type of weapon, could be Jedi. The probe droid found it near the mass grave at the foot of the ship. It’s still there, we’ve left everything intact and untouched as you have instructed.”

_I’m asking you back._

Vader knew instantly what type of weapon it was. This star destroyer, he knew, had been en route to Coruscant and had crashed into the surface of a barren rock. From what he could gather of leftover archives that weren’t completely wiped under the Emperor’s orders, this was the only Republic warship that had left Mandalore during the siege when it had been under Maul’s pitiful influence. He wondered what had become of that pathetic menace and ( _he wished he had been there instead fighting with her_ ) oh how he desired to brutally end that treasonous swine. 

The Emperor had orders for him to find Maul and eliminate him if alive. Sidious was cruel and paranoid in his old age, still believing his former apprentice was a threat despite having heard no word of him in all these years. His search had been fruitless for many months until it led him here. Retracing _her_ last steps _._ It led him to a wasteland in the Outer Rim with a wrecked warship and a mass grave of dead clones that had once been under Skywalker’s command during the war. 

_Take heart, little one. That’s the reality of command_.

“Very good, Commander, I will make my way to the wreckage. You will report to me once you have finished sweeping the perimeter,” He dismissed Cody as soon as the trooper nodded in the affirmative. 

He was close to it now, so close he can see the lone helmet of a clone soldier covered in heavy snow, painted in faded orange hue and the familiar white markings native to the Togruta. The Venator was old and, with absolute certainty, abandoned. He could not sense anything, he only felt faint pinprick sensations, traces of Force signatures since faded. Both dark and light mixing together. Maul and _her_.

He felt his steps grow heavier and not just because the winds had started to pick up. ( _Ahsoka, wait!_ ) His breathing came heavier through his apparatus. He was indifferent to the cold, yet he despised trekking through freshly fallen snow as it brought memories of another distant moon, back when he had been that weak fool and not as he was now. ( _Ahsoka, I need to talk to you!_ ) The closer he came, the slower his pace got and the clearer he could see that helmet. 

( _Why are you doing this?_ ) He saw something on the ground, the weapon the droid had scanned. A lightsaber. ( _The council didn’t trust me. So how can I trust myself?_ ) He knelt down and picked it up, brushing away snow. ( _What about me? I believed in you. I stood by you!_ ) He knew this blade. The rusted hilt was something he had designed, long ago. 

_I know you believe in me, Anakin_. 

He stood and switched the emitter on as blue light bathed his vision, the color marred by the red lenses of his mask. It has been a very long time since he had touched a Jedi’s lightsaber.

_The Jedi Order is your life. You can’t just throw it_ (me) _away like this! Ahsoka, you are making a mistake!_

_Maybe. But I have to sort this out on my own. Without the Council._

He shut the emitter off and examined the lightsaber once more. 

_And without you._

He felt the stirring of rage coil in his stomach because _she abandoned him she left she just left that_ **_coward_ **it was a waste of his efforts to come to this moon and have little to no results. Maul had perished here surely, as old restricted files have recorded that he was indeed captured and taken aboard. 

This weapon. _Her_ weapon, he will keep. Merely another dead Jedi ( _Ahsoka_ ) of his past. A Force echo that will soon leave him be. 

_When I was out there...alone. All I had was your training, and the lessons you taught me. And because of you, I did survive. And not only that, I was able to lead others to survive as well._

He turns back with the intention of reporting to his Master. ( _I don’t know what to say_ ). Maul is dead, perhaps his corpse had decayed with time or burnt to crisp in his violent descent. When Order 66 commenced, there had been chaos after all.

_I do_ \- she smiled - _thank you, Master._

**Author's Note:**

> A little exploration of what Vader’s thoughts were and how he ended up on the moon where Ahsoka’s venator had crashed. Like many of you, I recently watched the very last season of Clone Wars and I needed to let all my feels out. Please go easy on me as it's been a while since I've sat down and actually wrote something. Bonus points if anyone gets the Virmire reference (named so because the moon the Venator crashed into was unknown).


End file.
